Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Niels Bohr’s Complementarity and Quantum Tunneling

Slobodan Perović

Published Nov 11, 2017• 2 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle is a tenuous synthesis of seemingly discrepant theoretical approaches (the wave mechanical approach, and that of Heisenberg and early Bohr) based on a comprehensive analysis of relevant experimental results. Yet the role of complementarity, and the experimentalist-minded approach behind it, were not confined to a provisional best-available synthesis of well-established experimental results alone. They were also pivotal in discovering and explaining the phenomenon of quantum tunneling in its various forms. The core principles of Bohr’s method and the ensuing complementarity account of quantum phenomena remain highly relevant guidelines in the current controversial debate and in experimental work on quantum tunneling times.

Related papers

12. Complementarity Established and Applied

Slobodan Perović

Chapter 12 argues complementarity was not confined to reconciling the wave and matrix hypotheses; it also gave guidance to initial approaches to the phenomenon of quantum tunneling soon after Bohr developed his new master hypothesis. Although complementarity did not have the breakthrough flair of Bohr’s model of the atom, it has had a considerable and long-term influence on the experimentalist community.

University of Chicago Press eBooks•Jan 1, 2021•0 citations

Bohr and Heisenberg

Bernard d’Espagnat

One of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics occupies a privileged position in the opinion of the majority of physicists. This is the Copenhagen view, which owes its fame and popularity not only to historical reasons but also to its simplicity and practical efficiency. As is well known, the Copenhagen outlook was elaborated collectively. Nevertheless, Niels Bohr's and W. Heisenberg's contributions should be singled out as particularly outstanding. This chapter describes two principles, which are in fact the two pillars on which Bohr's doctrine is built. These are: The working of measuring instruments must be accounted for in purely classical terms . Another one is quantum systems that should not even be thought of as possessing individual properties independently of the experimental arrangement. In the particular case of the pair of observables "position" and "momentum," the Heisenberg uncertainty relations can be considered as a generalization of the complementarity principle.

CRC Press eBooks•Mar 5, 2018•0 citations

Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics

D. R. Murdoch

This book gives a clear and comprehensive exposition of Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics. Bohr's ideas are of major importance, for they are the source of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics; yet they are obscure, and call for the sort of close analysis that this book provides. The book describes the historical background of the physics from which Bohr's ideas grew. The core of the book is a detailed analysis of Bohr's arguments for complementarity and of the interpretation which he put upon it. Special emphasis is placed throughout on the contrasting views of Einstein, and the great debate between Bohr and Einstein is thoroughly examined. The book traces the philosophical influences on Bohr, and unravels the realist and anti-realist strands in his thinking. Bohr's philosophy is critically assessed in the light of recent developments in the foundations of quantum physics (the work of Bell and others) and in philosophy (the realism-anti-realism debate) and it is revealed as being much more subtle and sophisticated than it is generally taken to be. While the book will be of interest to specialists, it is written in a style that will make it accessible to those who have no specialist knowledge of the relevant physics and philosophy.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Nov 5, 1987•291 citations

Niels Bohr’s Philosophy-Physics:

Dugald R. Murdoch

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Wave-particle duality 2. Niels Bohr and wave-particle duality 3. From duality to complementarity 4. The meaning of complementarity 5. The foundations of kinematic-dynamic complementarity 6. Bohr's theory of measurement 7. Bohr's theory of properties 8. Einstein versus Bohr 9. The sequel to the Bohr-Einstein debate 10. Bohr's philosophy of physics 11. An appraisal of Bohr's philosophy of physics Notes Index.

Duke University Press eBooks•Jul 11, 2007•133 citations

The paradigm of complementarity

Sandro Petruccioli

‘The new wave mechanics gave rise to the hope that an account of atomic phenomena might be obtained which would not differ essentially from that afforded by the classical theories of electricity and magnetism. Unfortunately, Bohr's statement in the following communication of the principles underlying the description of atomic phenomena gives little, if any, encouragement in this direction.’ This comment is to be found in the brief note prefaced by the editors of the British journal Nature to Niels Bohr's paper ‘The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory’ in the supplement of 14 April 1928. The article in question is the famous paper which first introduced and defined the concept of ‘complementarity’ and outlined the basic points of what was to become known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the paper, Bohr returned to the arguments contained in the paper discussed at the International Congress of Physicists held at Como in September 1927 to mark the centenary of the death of Alessandro Volta and published in the proceedings of the same congress. It was probably his conviction that the new viewpoint adopted in the description of nature fully expressed the theoretical and cognitive content of quantum physics coupled with his enthusiasm at having achieved ‘after many years of struggling in the dark […] the fulfilment of the old hopes’ that induced him to give his work broader and more prestigious circulation.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Nov 18, 1993•0 citations

What is complementarity?: Niels Bohr and the architecture of quantum theory

Arkady Plotnitsky

This article explores Bohr's argument, advanced under the heading of 'complementarity,' concerning quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, and its physical and philosophical implications.In Bohr, the term complementarity designates both a particular concept and an overall interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, in part grounded in this concept.While the argument of this article is primarily philosophical, it will also address, historically, the development and transformations of Bohr's thinking, under the impact of the development of quantum theory and Bohr's confrontation with Einstein, especially their exchange concerning the EPR experiment, proposed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935.Bohr's interpretation was progressively characterized by a more radical epistemology, in its ultimate form, which was developed in the 1930s and with which I shall be especially concerned here, defined by his new concepts of phenomenon and atomicity.According to this epistemology, quantum objects are seen as indescribable and possibly even as inconceivable, and as manifesting their existence only in the effects of their interactions with measuring instruments upon those instruments, effects that define phenomena in Bohr's sense.The absence of causality is an automatic consequence of this epistemology.I shall also consider how probability and statistics work under these epistemological conditions.

Physica Scripta•Dec 1, 2014•14 citations
Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle is a tenuous synthesis of seemingly discrepant theoretical approaches (the wave mechanical approach, and that of Heisenberg and early Bohr) based on a comprehensive analysis of relevant experimental results. Yet the role of complementarity, and the experimentalist-minded approach behind it, were not confined to a provisional best-available synthesis of well-established experimental results alone. They were also pivotal in discovering and explaining the phenomenon of quantum tunneling in its various forms. The core principles of Bohr’s method and the ensuing complementarity account of quantum phenomena remain highly relevant guidelines in the current controversial debate and in experimental work on quantum tunneling times.
One of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics occupies a privileged position in the opinion of the majority of physicists. This is the Copenhagen view, which owes its fame and popularity not only to historical reasons but also to its simplicity and practical efficiency. As is well known, the Copenhagen outlook was elaborated collectively. Nevertheless, Niels Bohr's and W. Heisenberg's contributions should be singled out as particularly outstanding. This chapter describes two principles, which are in fact the two pillars on which Bohr's doctrine is built. These are: The working of measuring instruments must be accounted for in purely classical terms . Another one is quantum systems that should not even be thought of as possessing individual properties independently of the experimental arrangement. In the particular case of the pair of observables "position" and "momentum," the Heisenberg uncertainty relations can be considered as a generalization of the complementarity principle.
This book gives a clear and comprehensive exposition of Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics. Bohr's ideas are of major importance, for they are the source of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics; yet they are obscure, and call for the sort of close analysis that this book provides. The book describes the historical background of the physics from which Bohr's ideas grew. The core of the book is a detailed analysis of Bohr's arguments for complementarity and of the interpretation which he put upon it. Special emphasis is placed throughout on the contrasting views of Einstein, and the great debate between Bohr and Einstein is thoroughly examined. The book traces the philosophical influences on Bohr, and unravels the realist and anti-realist strands in his thinking. Bohr's philosophy is critically assessed in the light of recent developments in the foundations of quantum physics (the work of Bell and others) and in philosophy (the realism-anti-realism debate) and it is revealed as being much more subtle and sophisticated than it is generally taken to be. While the book will be of interest to specialists, it is written in a style that will make it accessible to those who have no specialist knowledge of the relevant physics and philosophy.
‘The new wave mechanics gave rise to the hope that an account of atomic phenomena might be obtained which would not differ essentially from that afforded by the classical theories of electricity and magnetism. Unfortunately, Bohr's statement in the following communication of the principles underlying the description of atomic phenomena gives little, if any, encouragement in this direction.’ This comment is to be found in the brief note prefaced by the editors of the British journal Nature to Niels Bohr's paper ‘The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory’ in the supplement of 14 April 1928. The article in question is the famous paper which first introduced and defined the concept of ‘complementarity’ and outlined the basic points of what was to become known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the paper, Bohr returned to the arguments contained in the paper discussed at the International Congress of Physicists held at Como in September 1927 to mark the centenary of the death of Alessandro Volta and published in the proceedings of the same congress. It was probably his conviction that the new viewpoint adopted in the description of nature fully expressed the theoretical and cognitive content of quantum physics coupled with his enthusiasm at having achieved ‘after many years of struggling in the dark […] the fulfilment of the old hopes’ that induced him to give his work broader and more prestigious circulation.
This article explores Bohr's argument, advanced under the heading of 'complementarity,' concerning quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, and its physical and philosophical implications.In Bohr, the term complementarity designates both a particular concept and an overall interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, in part grounded in this concept.While the argument of this article is primarily philosophical, it will also address, historically, the development and transformations of Bohr's thinking, under the impact of the development of quantum theory and Bohr's confrontation with Einstein, especially their exchange concerning the EPR experiment, proposed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935.Bohr's interpretation was progressively characterized by a more radical epistemology, in its ultimate form, which was developed in the 1930s and with which I shall be especially concerned here, defined by his new concepts of phenomenon and atomicity.According to this epistemology, quantum objects are seen as indescribable and possibly even as inconceivable, and as manifesting their existence only in the effects of their interactions with measuring instruments upon those instruments, effects that define phenomena in Bohr's sense.The absence of causality is an automatic consequence of this epistemology.I shall also consider how probability and statistics work under these epistemological conditions.